Monthly Archives: June 2013

A little over two years ago, her daughter Jiske was born. It was an unforgettable experience.

Now Marijke had an impact on us once again, with her sweet personality extremely sensitive and secure.

This second birth of Marijke in water was calm.

Graciela and I were with Marijke and Joris that day. Truthfully it was wonderful to see them together throughout all the labor that we didn’t wanted to interrupt them. They would relax, listen to music and caress each other. Later on she asked to get into the pool and there they continued in the intimacy of her maternity.

It was an easy and sweet birth. Janne was born as beautiful as her sister and parents.

A couple of days later Marijke wrote to us:

Dear Rodrigo & Graciela,

I’m sitting on my bed feeding Janne. Her name is Janne, I believe we forgot to tell you at the night she was born. And I’m so grateful that our beautiful girl is healthy and happy. You must know that I’m even so grateful to you. What a beautiful day it was, as soon as Graciela walked through our door my first contractions diminished and got a rhythm, both Janne and I knew that now everything was going to be just fine. I was alert during the whole birthing process, knowing each second from start to finish, so different than from Jiske’s birth. But again a very quiet, peaceful experience. Thank you for making this possible! Thank you for being here in Panama, for your warmth, your guts, expertise and common sense and just being you.

I will keep on spreading the word of your good work here, where I can I would love to help you gain more and more recognition of your practices. And when we ever leave Panama, I will never forget you! I want you to know how grateful I am to you both!

When a future mother goes to the beginning of her prenatal control, she always asks about the episiotomy. In Panama it is known as “stinging” or “cutting”. It is a real torment. To feel that it’s obligatory in order to have a natural birth, the doctor has to cut the vulva and the perineum!

The answer is NO!

Medicine based on evidence, which means that after multiple studies with large groups of populations, recommends clearly not performing a routine episiotomy in any birth.

Every woman knows what they have to do for her not to get hurt. The only thing we do is discuss during pregnancy how does she have to let the head and the body of the baby out, slowly so that she doesn’t have any lacerations. Surprisingly they all make it. And it’s not even hard.

The last time I did an episiotomy was 12 years ago and personally I attend births every day.

If a tearing or laceration is produced, it is always going to be less than a cut with a scissor that is very anti natural and painful. Little lacerations in the vaginal membrane may be produced, that most of the times doesn’t require any stitching, because the vaginal tissue it’s extremely noble and heals wonderfully. The pain after birth it is enormously greater if an episiotomy was performed in comparison with the lacerations that may occur. Also the risk of an infection it is significantly smaller and the sexual life doesn’t suffer any changes of any kind to the women who hadn’t had and episiotomy performed.

So the answer is NO. It isn’t necessary to perform a routine episiotomy and it’s scarcely the situations when it’s necessary to do it, independently of the existence of previous births or not.